The background description provided herein is for the purpose of generally presenting the context of the disclosure. Work of the presently named inventors, to the extent the work is described in this background section, as well as aspects of the description that may not otherwise qualify as prior art at the time of filing, are neither expressly nor impliedly admitted as prior art against the present disclosure.
In a cloud storage environment, a server provides shared storage for operating one or more virtual machines (VMs). Remote users access the server to use an operating system implemented by respective ones of the VMs. For example only, the users access the server via corresponding client stations or computers. The client stations communicate with a cluster of network nodes, which in turn interface with the server. For example, each client station may communicate with one of the nodes, which communicates with the server on behalf of one or more of the client stations. The node caches data used by the client stations. Accordingly, the data is available to the client stations without having to directly access the server.